Significant developments since the devastating CBO report was released just three hours ago: Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has reiterated his opposition to what he called a “terrible” bill, and just now Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) announced that she too opposes the bill. Notably, both senators said they would vote against a motion to proceed to the bill. Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV) launched a spirited attack on the bill last week, in his home state, at a press conference with his own governor. So at this stage, assuming no wobbliness from one of these three, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell lacks the votes to pass the bill. That’s not a small assumption: wobbliness can still happen. But as it stands now, McConnell has a lot of work to do.

The administration then chose to defame me and more importantly the FBI by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader. Those were lies, plain and simple. And I am so sorry that the FBI workforce had to hear them and I’m so sorry that the American people were told them.